Part 11: Envy

Envy

            This one is a bit confusing; on one side going green is great for the environment, but on the other side being green with envy will send you straight to Hell.[1] Since I’m no Captain Planet and stories that end in Hell tend to be more exciting, at least for the reader, I’ll stay away from describing my adventures at the recycling plant and move right into the juicy bits:

I was 100% completely envious of the new kid in 3^rd grade.

            I have a long held belief that I peaked in the second grade. It was when I felt the coolest, sexiest, and most popular. Sexy may not be the most accurate word for a second grader, but come on, I was asking for it. Did you see what I was wearing?[2] I was smart, athletic, and the majority of girls in the class were into me. I wasn’t into them but only because girls are icky. After a while I began to enjoy the attention of the fairer sex, although I would never say that. Who can say the word “sex” without giggling anyway? Just when I started to like girls back, in walks a new kid on the first day of third grade ready to screw up a good thing. I wasn’t this jealous of any other student since Kindergarten when one kid got to walk to school. He was always earlier than everybody else which meant he got to play with the coolest toys. Still filled with an envious rage over that. But this new guy, I’m going to call him Matt. I’m going to call him that because that’s his name and I doubt he wants to remain anonymous since I’m about to call him the coolest person the third grade has ever seen. 


He was the coolest person the third grade has ever seen. 


He was mysterious, good looking, and even worse for me…a really great guy. I guess we called guys in the third grade boys. He was a really great boy.[3]
            Almost overnight, the girls in the class had found somebody else to chase around the playground. It was of course inevitable. I was a bit pudgy and a future bald man and he looked like a pre-scientology Tom Cruise and future, I’ll assume, millionaire with a full head of hair.  Being inevitable doesn’t make it any less enraging. You’ve stolen my popularity just by walking in the door! That doesn’t say a whole lot about my popularity, and this was my peak. My peak!

            My first move of course was to befriend Matt. This was the best way to ensure females would still hang around my little group. I had worked hard to establish a female friendly close circle of friends.[4] If I couldn’t have them all to myself, I at least had to maintain proximity. I think proximity is like, one of the top five most important things to getting a girl to like you. Maybe the whole type five. Unfortunately the most interaction I got after Matt’s arrival were from inquiries into Matt’s “who does he like” status. Their notes probably didn’t need to have check boxes for “yes” or “no” because they were going to get a “maybe.” He was mysterious, remember?

            I won’t say I did anything to sabotage Matt’s chances with the ladies but in the end I don’t think anybody ever hooked up in the third grade. You’re welcome elementary school parents. My being jelly bears saved the innocence of dozens of children. Until at least 5^th grade. That grade tends to get a little skanky. I blame algebra.

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[1] Or if you’re at camp, going green will send you straight to the infirmary.

[2] Jean shorts and a basketball jersey with a white t-shirt underneath?

[3] What happened in my life that saying the word “boy” out loud now sounds creepy?

[4] Like writing adorable stories about chipmunks and organizing chess tournaments. Wait? What? Why did ANYBODY hang out with me?

Part 10: Patience

Patience

Patience is a virtue. It’s a very popular saying, and since I was a very popular kid[1] I practiced patience every chance I got. As a chubby kid I had patience waiting for years to get girls’ attention. As a nerdy kid I had patience in waiting for the principal to let me out of the locker. As an adult kid I have the patience to sit through an entire movie without taking a bathroom break. My mom would be so proud.

Patience can be a great asset as a kid, especially when the summer neighborhood games begin. The summer neighborhood games, I assume a universal suburban tradition, is a massive scale game of capture the flag, hide-n-seek, or the very popular game “Noah’s sister is changing in the basement let’s see if she left the curtain open.”[2] Usually though it was hide-n-seek, at night of course. It’s more fun at night. I don’t know why more parents don’t let their kids run around at night trying to find places to hide in strangers’ yards. Patience comes into play when you’re a super good hider, or when your “friends” aren’t really looking for you. I prefer to think I was a very good hider. It could be a full hour before anybody finds you. That’s a long time for a non-patient kid to wait. Fortunately for me, I was accustomed to sitting quiet, all by myself, for extended periods of time.[3] My best hiding place ever for nighttime hide-n-seek was also my worst hiding place ever for daytime hide-n-seek: The middle of the front yard. I wore all black, like an 11 year old ninja who may have been like 14. I don’t remember. Memory skills are not part of the ninja skill set. I lied face down in the grass and had to hold back laughing at the “finders” as they walked right past me repeatedly. Patience won out, or more accurately, I won out. I won the game, with patience.

Patience in hiding has also back fired on me. I was lying down behind the couch one day. I don’t know why, probably because I’m weird. I’m going to say I was reading a book, but anybody who knew me back then would know I was not reading a book.[4] My mom yelled down the stairs for me to come up for dinner. I did not go. She told me it was dinner time again. I still did not go, nor did I respond. I was pretty sure this was going to be a hilarious prank. The kind of prank where my mother has no idea where her 10 year old son is. Nothing could go wrong.

She made her way downstairs, found nobody. Went upstairs, found nobody. Went into the living room, found nobody. Patience is a virtue, so I remained silent as she called for me. Now my Dad gets in on the action. “Chris! Where are you?!” “Chris!?” So funny. After 10-15 minutes of patience induced panic, I decided it was time for dinner.[5] When they saw me, they were furiously happy. Apparently, when a parent thinks their kid is missing they get very sad but when they realize it was all a prank they get very upset, which is like being sad but louder. So patience may be a virtue, but apparently virtues can ruin a day. At the very least ruin what could have been a nice tuna noodle casserole dinner. According to the rules, I did the right thing. No matter what, just keep waiting.

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[1] I must continue to reiterate, do not fact check this.

[2] See also, Lust.

[3] See also, Sloth.

[4] Unless maybe it was the Giver, that book made me believe in colors again.

[5] See also, Gluttonny

Part 9: Wrath

Wrath

I AM NOT WRATHFUL, HOW DARE YOU FOR QUESTIONING THAT![1] I apologize for yelling, but it was the quickest way for me to explain what wrath was to the lay person. Although everyone who reads this is smart, so you knew what wrath was already and now we’re just all upset about the time we’ve wasted over defining wrath!

Wrath is not something I have experienced with much regularity. It may have something to do with being an emotional robot or it may have to do with my bottling up of emotions waiting for the cork to pop in the form of stomach ulcers. One day however the cork popped in a more “I want to punch my friend in the face” kind of way. I wanted to punch my friend in the face but what actually happened was I punched the grocery store fresh steak that was in his hand. For the record, I was aiming for the face. I only missed by 2 and a half feet.

I probably should have started at the beginning and explain why I was so mad.[2] I think I skipped that part because it makes me look irrational, irritable, and insane. It all started when I was hanging out with two of my friends, probably playing video games and drinking chocolate milk,[3] when my mom came home with the groceries. “Let’s go help bring stuff in,” I said. “OK!” said one friend. “Nope” said the other. The rage started to build. The good friend and I went out to the car to help my mother and grabbed a few bags. The bad friend came out and started talking to my mother which means now she’s not doing any work. Rage building! We got all the groceries inside and put away when the bad friend picked up a steak[4] that was thawing on the counter and invited himself over for dinner:

::insert the typed out version of what punching a steak sounds like::

I may have overreacted. That’s wrath for you. Once every 17 years I’m going to flip out and punch my future dinner. On a positive note, once every 17 years my dinner is going to be nice and tender.

As a a neat little wrap up (or should I say “wrath up[5]”) we have gotten over the “beating the meat” situation. Not all parties agreed on calling it that. The bad friend was and is my best friend although I have not talked to the good friend in years…which may make me the bad friend…which REALLY PISSES ME OFF!

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[1] I am wrestling with the idea of writing this one in only in ALL CAPS.

[2] I blame Tarantino.

[3] I was 17.

[4] The steak! It’s all coming together…

[5] Please don’t EVER say that.

Part 8: Diligence

Diligence

The fact that it took me even more time to write this than it did Sloth doesn’t bode well for me looking very diligent. Would you believe it took me so long to write because I was working so diligently in every other aspect of my life? I didn’t think so, but it was worth a shot.[1]

The main evidence that I am indeed diligent probably wouldn’t stand up in court: My favorite characters in Fraggle Rock were the Doozers. “Work the day away, play is for another day”. The diligentry’s[2] anthem. Seriously, was nobody else completely frustrated that the Fraggles were constantly EATING the Doozers’ homes and presumably their places of business?

Other than my empathy to hard working muppets in a kid’s program, diligence is apparent in many aspects of my life. It has to be. Where, you ask? I will tell you, just get off my back. You’re just stalling while you think of an example aren’t you, you say? Yes. Thank you for calling me on my BS.

As a kid, I was known best for being lazy, and second best for having fuzzy hair. But in the summer time something happened that turned me into a diligent worker bee. That event, which happened once a year, was garage sale season. My parents hated garage sales because to them it was a lot of work for very little payoff. Apparently to them, getting a nickel for a stuffed dog was not enough to wake up at 5 in the morning. For me, it was way more than enough reason. It was my chance to run my own little business for a day. I loved spreading out all of our junk in the basement with my multicolored circle stickers in hand. Old clock? Orange sticker, dollar twenty five. Happy Days board game that I played once? Blue sticker, twenty five cents.[3] McDonald’s mini beanie baby? Throw it in the dime box.

One year garage sale season was getting really close but I had heard nothing from the neighborhood organizers about the official date. I inquired about it to my mother and father of whom I had the utmost admiration and respect. With one fell swoop they dashed my dreams

Oh yea, I think we got something about that a while ago. We didn’t sign up

Sabotage! But guess what mom and dad[4] I have a Grandma and Grandpa who want to hire me to do a garage sale for them and they said I can bring my own stuff to sell too. Look at me creating lemonade out of lemons which I can totally sell at the garage sale for a high margin.

Some of you may be wondering how running a garage sale is an example of diligence. Do you know how much work it takes to convince your grandma that her old jars are only worth ten cents? Neither do I, she wouldn’t let me take less than fifty cents for them. So if you want one, they are still in her cellar.

Moral of the story: I woke up before dawn, put hundreds of stickers on junk, sat outside in the heat for hours negotiating on items that were already marked for pennies, and did it all for approximately 40 buck. Diligent? Check.

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[1] If there WAS one person who believed I was being diligent elsewhere, I just ruined it with that concession.

[2] Diligentry: (noun) a people whom exude the qualities of diligence, totally not a made up word

[3] Bought it the year before at a garage sale down the street for ten cents. Profit!

[4] Not capitalized for a reason!

Part 7: Sloth

Sloth

I learned what the word apathy meant around the age of 12. My mentor finally pinpointed a word that described me to a T.[1] Throughout my childhood I have typically been very good at doing things, but never bothered much to actually do them. In 8^th grade I had a lock on making the school basketball team. I knew the coach, he liked the way I played, and I had new basketball shoes that really made it feel like I could jump higher. The bad news though was that I got sick the day before tryouts. I was told I could stop by practice and tryout later which is the easiest make up test I had since missing a 3^rd grade spelling test.[2] It was SO easy that I decided to just not show up. I didn’t care enough to be the new Lebron James before Lebron James even existed. I decided it was much easier to just come home after school instead of running laps.

Although I have many examples of apathy and slothdom, choosing the best example is simple: I once slept for 23 straight hours. I’m not even sure sloths do that. Take that sloths, I beat you at your own game. I don’t really remember the circumstances that lead to the marathon nap, although not knowing many details has never stopped me from telling a story before.

As far as I know I was not sick, nor did I stay up the night before for some sort of rager. Although I was prone to the occasional rager as a 14 year old. I was very cool. Always partying. However this day was just a regular, sitting on the couch watching classic Looney Tunes, kind of day. I probably made macaroni and cheese for lunch, by which I mean my mom probably made me mac & cheese for lunch with some sort of item on the side to make it ‘balanced.’ I would have made it but that wouldn’t be very sloth like.

I remember that nothing very good was on tv so I closed my eyes circa 1 pm. I didn’t fall asleep with the intention of not waking up until the next day but greatness is rarely achieved on purpose.[3] The day then passed by around me while I rolled around, sound asleep, probably sleep passing gas, on the couch.

1:00pm-5:30pm was very easy. I slept like a baby, but like a really mature baby who doesn’t suck at sleeping. Somewhere around 5:30 I admit I woke up to turn off the tv. I don’t count this as cheating, I count it as an act of commitment. I didn’t need that tv distracting me from my dreams. I may have also went upstairs to grab a sandwich which added some cardio to my sleep adventure. This all took place in under 5 minutes, which in the world of sleeping means it doesn’t count as waking up. There were no more disruptions until noon the next day when I woke up to finish my macaroni and cheese and live out the rest of my life not caring about stuff.[4]

On a final note on being a sloth, it took me over 4 weeks to write this entry. It doesn’t look good for me.

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[1] If I was described to a Tee, I would hope it was short sleeved.

[2] I probably can’t spell any of those words correctly now. Thanks a lot spell check.

[3] The light bulb was the result of Thomas Edison dropping a box of parts into another box of parts.

[4] I think at one point my mom came down to check if I was alive. I was, at least on the outside.